During and following his formal graduate education, Dr. Howard trained with and learned from many of the pioneers and early developers of Gestalt therapy including Dr.'s Erving and Miriam Polster, Jim Simkin, Ph.D., Isadore From, and Laura Perls. Gestalt therapy was developed in the early 1950's as a more direct, present centered therapy that focuses on increased self-awareness and an integration of our thoughts, feelings and actions. Gestalt therapy seeks to illuminate and treat both internal processes such as painful feelings and conflict and it also focuses on the corresponding interruption in our contact and presence with others.
In the early 1990's, Dr. Howard expanded on the wisdom of Gestalt therapy with the newly emerging field of relational psychoanalytic thinking and studied for several years with one of its central developers, Robert Stolorow, Ph.D. Dr. Howard also trained in psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles. A central tenant of contemporary relational psychoanalytic therapy is that our difficulties emerge comprehensively from our relational history with significant people in our development as opposed to the more traditional psychoanalytic theory that places greater emphasis on unconscious instinctual drives. Contemporary relational analytic therapy is a more collaborative process as compared to the more hierarchical structure between doctor and patient found in the traditional form of treatment. In psychoanalytic therapy, our history is focused on only to the extent that it continues to operate within us and impair our current functioning.
In addition to the practice of individual psychotherapy and couples therapy, Dr. Howard has, for many years, supervised master's level and pre- and post-doctoral interns. He has lectured in the U.S. and abroad, and serves in court as an expert witness in the area of psychological injury.
